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Ethical Obligations of Peer Reviewers

  1. If the Peer Reviewer is not sure that his/her scientific qualification corresponds to the level of a research presented in the manuscript, he/she must immediately return the manuscript.
  2. The Peer Reviewer must objectively assess the quality of the manuscript, the submission of the experimental and theoretical work, its interpretation and presentation, and also to take into account the extent to which the work corresponds the required scientific and literary standards. The Peer Reviewer must respect the intellectual independence of the Authors.
  3. The Peer Reviewer must take into account the probability of competing, or conflicting interests in the case when the manuscript is considered to be closely related to the current or already published work of the Peer Reviewer. If in doubt, the Peer Reviewer must immediately return the manuscript without any review, pointing at competing interests.
  4. If the Peer Reviewer is guessing who is the Author or the Co-author of the manuscript, and thus is being unable to perform an impartial and objective independent expert examination of the manuscript, he/she must cease reviewing and inform the Executive Secretary of the Collection of scientific articles on the impossibility of further work.
  5. The Peer Reviewer must deal with the manuscript sent to the review process as a confidential document. He/she must not demonstrate the manuscript to other persons or discuss it with other colleagues except in special cases where the reviewer needs someone else's special advice.
  6. The Peer Reviewers must argue in favour of their thoughts about the article; any statement that certain observations, conclusions, analysis results have already been published, must be accompanied by a reference to an appropriate source.
  7. The Peer Reviewer must draw the Editorial Board’s attention to the significant similarity between the analyzed manuscript and a certain published article or a manuscript simultaneously submitted to another printed publication.
  8. The Peer Reviewer must provide a review in a timely manner.
  9. The Peer Reviewers have no right to use or disclose unpublished information, arguments or interpretations contained in the article under review, unless agreed upon by the Author.